The present invention relates generally to warp knitted fabrics and the manufacture of apparel from such fabrics. More particularly, the present invention relates to a warp knitted fabric characterized by the ability to be molded and heat set into a permanent shape and to a method for forming a seamless molded fabric portion, e.g., a breast cup for a woman's brassiere, utilizing such fabric.
As is well-known, textile fabrics are manufactured in flat planar sheet form which accordingly must be cut into various shapes to be sewn together in order to fashion garments into appropriate shapes to fit the human anatomy. Such has traditionally been true particularly of specialty garments intended to be close-fitting, such as women's brassieres.
While cut-and-sewn brassieres have proven to perform quite satisfactorily in retaining their shape over extended numbers of wearings and washings, the sewn seams in such brassieres, particularly in the breast cups, are nevertheless undesirable in that the seams tend to be visible through some clothing and also detract from the comfort of the brassieres.
Accordingly, the textile garment industry has sought for some time to produce women's brassieres with seamless breast cups without sacrificing the desirable shape-retention characteristics of traditional cut-and-sewn brassieres. To do so, most development effort in the field has been directed toward creating textile fabrics which can be permanently molded through heat setting into various breast cup sizes and shapes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,310 describes the historical progression of such moldable fabrics and discloses a warp knitted polyester fabric specifically designed to overcome the deficiencies of prior art molded fabrics. While the fabric described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,310 and other similar moldable fabrics have achieved a reasonable degree of commercial success to the point that currently brassieres with seamless breast cups represent approximately 38% of all brassiere sales in the United States, no moldable fabric has yet been developed which will closely simulate the woven satin fabrics which have long been the fabric of choice in cut-and-sewn brassieres.